At a Certain Age, Simplicity Sells in High-Tech Gadgets — ALL right, everyone under the age of 40, go run around the block or something. This column is not for you. — It is for people like me, inching toward 50, who are, let us say, not technology-averse, but do not embrace it with the unquestioning love that our children do.

Fine, I'll Say It: Shyftr Crosses The Line — Well, I can already tell what the headlining post this weekend is going to be on Techmeme (or bitchmeme, a la MG), and its going to probably revolve around Shyftr, a relatively new service in the RSS aggregating category (and lo, since I started writing, it has begun!)

‘Amazon Tax’ Lands in New York — Controversial new law shifts collection requirement to online retailers in a move that other states could follow, but legal uncertainties abound. — With the passage of the hotly debated state budget last night, New York legislators approved a bill …

Craigslist Competitor OLX Raises $13.5M — According to co-founder Fabrice Grinda, “OLX is probably the largest classified site no one has ever heard of.” And now it's also the most funded classified site no one has ever heard of, having secured an additional $13.5M in Series B funding today …

Meet Facebook's new number two — Sheryl Sandberg has held high-profile jobs at the World Bank, the Treasury Department and Google. Her latest challenge? Making Facebook as profitable as it is popular. — NEW YORK (Fortune) — This is only day 13 on the job for Sheryl Sandberg …

Google execs out of sight — THEY spend their days devising technology that eats away at privacy but when it comes to disclosing their own personal information the people behind Google's prying mapping systems are less than co-operative. — Google Australia is expected within months …

Hacker News Bans Valleywag — Hacker News, a small but influential digg/reddit-like tech news site hosted at Y Combinator, is asking its users if stories from Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag should be banned from the service. … After 20 hours of voting, 60% of the 400+ people who voted said yes to the ban.

Firefox Logo Spied In Deep Space — One of these is a photograph taken by the Hubble space telescope on December 17, 2002, featuring the variable star V838 Monocerotis. The other is the same photograph overlaid with a familiar logo. Can you tell which is which?

Reports of Windows' demise are greatly exaggerated — I was planning to avoid posting about Gartner's “Windows will collapse under its own weight” presentation from earlier this week because I felt it was a bunch of hype that didn't provide any new insights or conclusions.

The Coming of the Holodeck — Virtuality reality at a desktop computer has always seemed so — how should I say it? — unreal. — Now a new generation of inexpensive video cameras that sense 3D information is taking a tiny step toward the Star Trek Holodeck.